1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a data sharing apparatus and method and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method that mutually authenticate mobile terminals having a communication function using communication between the mobile terminals and automatically or manually share data using communication depending on a relationship between the authenticated mobile terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of technologies may be utilized to perform data communication between mobile terminals.
Near Field Communication (NFC) is noncontact short-range wireless communication technology using a frequency band of 13.56 MHz. NFC not only can provide data communication between mobile devices such as smart phones, but also can provide compatibility with existing noncontact smart card technology and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.
Bluetooth, which is an industrial standard for personal short-range wireless communication first created by Ericsson in 1994, enables various devices to securely communicate with each other at low cost.
Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) enables communication between an Access Point (AP), which basically functions to transfer data to the Internet, and a mobile terminal, such as a notebook computer or a smart phone, with which a user is provided with a service. Owing to the advantage of enabling access to the Internet or mutual communication without requiring a wire, various peripheral devices also support WiFi communication.
WiFi-direct provides the function of enabling devices equipped with a WiFi function to directly communicate with each other without passing through a WiFi-direct AP that supports a connection between WiFi devices.
Currently, various communication technologies that support short-range/middle range/long-range communication are present, and thus data communication between mobile devices may be performed using communication technology desired by a user.
However, a connection setup task for using individual communication technologies is complicated, and an authentication task for making a connection and setup tasks for sharing data when the connection has been made are complicated, thus causing a lot of inconvenience to a user.
Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2008-0090786 (entitled “Apparatus and method for sharing data between mobile devices”) discloses technology for sharing data using a short-range communication means between mobile devices.
The above-described Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2008-0090786 discloses a mobile device which includes a communication unit for Bluetooth communication, a storage unit for storing data, a preference information control unit for controlling a search for shared data based on user preference information, and a search control unit for searching the device of another party for shared data using a preference information-based keyword via Bluetooth information based on the preference information, receiving retrieved data, and storing the retrieved data in the storage unit.
However, the technology disclosed in the above-described Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2008-0090786 does not disclose a configuration for establishing data sharing based on sociality information between devices, which is constructed using the social relationship of the human social network service of a user and the history of a connection between the devices.